NationStates Jolt Archive

The North Atlantic was rough. Winter storms were ravishing the massive body of water. The entire North Atlantic was under the control of the October Alliance, the Fourth Reich and Empire having developed their own defense group plan for the entire North Atlantic. Nothing moved in and out of the North Atlantic without their knowhow. SOSUS posts, satellites, radars, and everything else imaginable, allowed them to literally see everything under the water, on the surface, and in the air.

As the sun rose on the morning of the 24th of January, a massive unit of forces were staging at six various points along the coast of Labrador, Newfoundland, Baffin Island, Maine, New Jersey, and Virginia. Wilson Class AKRN ships, Liberty II Class AKN ships, and various other merchant ships were sitting in dock, being loaded up with forces upon forces. Operasjon Bedrag was beginning and it would involve moving an entire Corps of army cavalry and infantry across the North Atlantic to Norway. Ships would land at Lillesand and Tvedestrand in southern Norway. Aircraft, namely Boeing 747s and Airbus A380s would ferry troops to Norway and land at Kjevik Airfield at Kristiansand, also in southern Norway. The ships would take a 3,600 mile journey, give or take a few hundred miles, which would take roughly a week to complete. Aircraft would arrive ahead of and before the shipping.

Escorted by long-range F-22A Raptors, refueling in flight across the Atlantic, the transport aircraft would be greeted at the twenty-four nautical mile limit of Norwegian airspace and water. Ships would also be met there. From that point on, they would be escorted all the way to their destinations.

The Norwegians were busy at work, preparing the civilian population of the events which would take place in a weeks time. Phamplets were handed out to everyone, news reports were made and the local Home Guard units recieved official letters from the district command with orders to report for duty in five days time. The Home Guards would primarily help out as guides, traffic police and protection along with the regular soldiers.

In the naval station in Mandal, the twenty Skjold class fast patrol boats of the 21st MTB Squadron were readied for the events that were to come. They would see some intense action soon, with the Layartebians coming on a visit and all. The same events took place at Haakonsvern Naval Base, where frigates and destroyers were prepared. Crews stowed supplies and weapons were loaded. They would put to sea in a day or two and reestablish contact with their sea legs before the Layartebians arrived.

At Kjevik, the runways and tarmacs were prepared for the many aircraft which would arrive in a few days. Buses and trucks were already leased and prepared to carry the many Layartebian soldiers to their staging areas when they arrived, guided by Norwegian military units. F-63K Tengriy air superiority fighters stationed at Kjevik were ready for the exercises as well, but they would for the most part be stationed in other bases for the duration of this exercise. The Layartebians had informed that a lot of transports would arrive.

All in all, they were ready.

Troops in Norway: 2,600

The North Atlantic was cold. Winter was definitely worse 800 miles away from land. As the convoy, and its epic size, steamed towards Norway, it met up with submarine escorts from the ILDF - Atlantic Protection Group, which included Hunter and Scythe SSNs. The convoy was making eighteen knots across the North Atlantic, checking in frequently with command in the Atlantic and in Layarteb. It was almost unnecessary as satellites would track them across the entire bredth of the North Atlantic. This was one of the largest convoys assembled by the Empire in peaceful times and it looked more like the prelude to an invasion force than it did a supply convoy, and rightfully so. The Norwegians would escort them through their waters and were more than happy to recieve the men and their tanks. Tensions in Europe were increasing again and this time, the Empire wasn't going to be left out. They were going to, by all means, be more than prepared for what was about to come.

Already in Norway, aircraft were landing. Twenty-six hundred men were down already, having come in through Boeing 747s and Airbus A380s. Fighter escorts would refuel over Norway and the North Sea from KC-10A Extenders launched from Ireland and Iceland while the transports landed and went about their business. Then, almost without stop, the transports would take off and head back to Layarteb, to pick up more. As one flight was landing, another was taking off, and so on and so fourth. The transport was minor, in scale, to the size of what would eventually be done. Fifty-four thousand men was only a corps. An entire Army Force consisted of over 162,000 men and an entire Army Group consisted of far, far, far more.

As the aircraft arrived at the Norwegian airspace boundaries, they were greeted by F-63K Tengriy fighters, usually a pair or two of them per group of aircraft, providing protection. The Tengriys were brand new fighters, made by the Armed Republic of Soviet Bloc, and piloted by the best pilots in the Royal Norwegian Air Force. The normal radio chatter went over the airwaves, and E-5B Kami AWACS planes guided the fighters. All was quiet here on the southern front, just as expected. Kjevik was the southernmost air force facility in Norway itself, but it was surrounded by allies. No foreign aircraft were detected that shouldn't be there, and the fighter pilots continued on their routine mission, being 99.99% certain that they wouldn't have to use the 4 AIM-204B Dødsengels, 6 AIM-120D AMRAAMs and 4 AIM-9X Sidewinders they each carried.

On the ground, MIM-211 Salt air defense missile sites were also active, tracking the incoming aircraft as they approaced. It was great practice for the crews, most of them never having fired a missile in anger before. The aircraft were tracked to Kjevik Air Station.

At Kjevik, chartered buses and military trucks waited to carry the Layartebians to the staging areas, carefully watched by officers from five different military branches. The Army, the Air Force, the Navy, the Marine Corps and the Home Guards would all be active in this operation. Army and Home Guard officers guided the buses and trucks, while Air Force officers directed the troops where to go when they got off the planes. The Navy and Marines weren't directly involved here, but they would be in the second and third phases, the naval and landing operations.

At the tarmac at Kjevik, a kaptein from the Air Force dressed in BDUs and a wool sky blue overcoat boarded one of the newly landed 747s and talked briefly with the officer in charge of the aircraft, then got on the intercom. He spoke in a moderately accented voice, hailing from the south of Norway.

"May I have your attention please. I'm kaptein Ostervold from the Royal Norwegian Air Force. First of all, welcome to Norway. It's a nice minus twelve degrees centigrade outside and snowing as you can see, so be sure to wear your warm clothes. I want you all to remember the following number. B ninety. That's Bravo ninety. That's the number of the hangar you are to assemble outside for further transport. It's located across the tarmac, so I want everyone to assemble in two files outside the aircraft and march over there. Your officers will be given instructions, so just follow them. Thank you for your attention."

He then exited and walked on to the next aircraft, where he gave the same instructions. It was a logistical nightmare, but it would be done. This was where the total defense came in handy. Every citizen were expected to do his or her bit in defense of the nation. For instance, the government had made deals with many people and businesses that said that if the government needed to, they would get to borrow the buses, ships, aircraft, cars, et cetra they needed when they needed them. It was a good deal, because the people who agreed to it got tax cuts as compensation. It also united the people against aggressors, because they knew that if it came to war, there was a chance that their car, bus, ship, aircraft or whatever would be damaged or destroyed, and no one wanted that to happen!

As hangar B-90, five buses and ten soldiers dressed in BDUs in the Norwegian camo pattern waited. They were from the Home Guard, having been at home in bed just five hours prior. Now, they were to transport the Layartebian soldiers to the plains outside Grimstad, a rather large city with 200,000 inhabitants and a small army base.

Grimstad was situated roughly 30 kilometers from Kjevik, and in the middle from Lillesand and Tvedestrand, the two designated Layartebian landing sites, enabling a relatively quick transport of troops from the base to the landing site. Grimstad had been prepared for the arrival of the soldiers, and the local snack bars, internet cafés, bars and pubs had stocked up and called in extra shifts. Additional military police had also been moved to the base in Grimstad to supplement the local police. All in all everything was ready for the operation to commence in full.

Seventeen nautical miles off the Norwegian coastline, a squadron of two Armada class and two Bergen class frigates, two Indefatigable class and one Rothsky class destroyer and one Hordaland class cruiser protecting their home waters. They waited for the Layartebian ships to arrive, running drills as they waited. The winter storms were taking a lull, but the sea was still choppy. Hopefully they would subdue a bit before the Layartebian ships arrived.

North Atlantic

The Layartebian convoy was moving quickly through the icy and rough waters of the North Atlantic. Escort ships kept their radars active to see if there were any enemy fighters, particularly Russian, approaching them. The convoy ships were sitting ducks, easy to take down with anti-shipping missiles. The escorts were far more difficult to sink. SONAR scans and sweeps ensured that they weren't being tracked or followed by Russian submarines either. The North Atlantic may have been TOA territory but a submarine moving very slowly with a very advanced propulsion design, especially pebblebed reactors, could remain hidden long enough to get into the North Atlantic and become a problem, it had happened before.

Norway

More and more aircraft landed, completing the airborne deployment of the operation in only four days. They had deployed some 32,000 soldiers to Norway already and through Boeing 747s and Airbus A380s. When they would deploy more than a single Corps, they would use vast amounts of Boeing 747s, Airbus A380s, civilian airliners, and cargo transports, as well as ships. The convoy was still three days away.

The Norwegians were starting to increase the forces in the area in anticipation of the exercises which were to take place in a few days. B-10A Plyndrer anti-shipping bombers from the Fleet Air Arm started flying patrols, escorted by F-63K Tengriy fighters and FB-177A Barsuk fighterbombers, brand new from the factories in Soviet Bloc. This exercise, which was almost guaranteed to be monitored by among other the Russian Federation would show off the Norwegian weapons of war, most of them being highly advanced designs from abroad.

The B-10 however was a indiginous design, designed and constucted specifically to carry anti-shipping missiles. When loaded to max capacity, one B-10A could carry a whooping 65 AGM-84L Harpoon anti-shipping missiles! 40 internally and 25 externally. Alternately, against large combatants, it could carry up to 10 AGM-203 Imsdal cruise missiles externally and 30 AGM-84Ls internally. It had a good range, 5,500 nautical miles fully loaded with weapons, and it could go supersonic. To top it all, it had the same radar signature as the venerable B-2A Spirit stealth bomber. All in all, the large aircraft was a dangerous foe to any ship it faced, and the pilots of Squadron 18 of the Royal Norwegian Navys 3rd Land Wing would get a chance to hone their skills against one of the largest navies in the world.

Bump

North Atlantic

With two days left of their journey, the convoy kept up full steam. They already had a fatality, a soldier who had the unfortunate demise of falling overboard during a storm. He was sucked underneath the ship and presumably drowned or thrown through the propeller. If he even survived that, he wasn't going to be alive for much longer in the icy waters. On the other hand, that was nothing new. A fatality or two across the North Atlantic was something to be expected, it was trecherous and unforgiving.

F-22A Raptors escorting transports to and from Norway were involved in mock air battles with Norwegian aircraft, fighting in dogfights, obtaining infrared lock at close range. However, F-22As were the only aircraft doing the escorting. On long, night runs, F-25B Firefox interceptors and F-37A Razor fighters were in the skies. These were aircraft that were highly classified and extremely agile. The Firefox alone was a beast of the skies and it was no slouch. Dogfighting with it was like dogfighting with an enemy who knew your every move before you made it.

Layarteb City

The Emperor sat at his desk. His speech for the evening was something that would be broadcast around the world, especially in Europe. "Good evening ladies and gentlemen of the Empire. It is my pleasure to speak to all of you this evening." He smiled. "This evening I can announce that the Empire is taking a step towards the preservation of our safety and our security.

"I have ordered a build-up of our military forces in Norway, Ireland, Iceland, Greenland, the Caribbean, and Europe. Threats from the Russian Federation have prompted us to entertain the notion of pre-emption. I agree this is a very unworthy time for this but I must digress. We signed a treaty with the Russian Federation, a Non-Aggression Pact, which we do not believe they have any intention of honoring. We must be prepared if they do. The Empire will not be caught by surprise when tanks and helicopters of the Russian Federation sweep over the borders into the lands of our allies.

"Moreover, we also turn our attention to the Pacific. The Tyrandi government, in a seemingly unknown and secretive alliance with the Russian Federation, has been making threats against our Norwegian allies and their land in Australia. We will not stand idly by as our allies, who have shown time and time again that they will die for us, are threatened. The Empire will not allow those in the world to threaten the balance of power that exists.

"The Empire calls out to all nations of the world who seek peace, enjoy the status quo, and dislike the dishonesty and lack of integrity of these two nations to unite under the banner of sovereignty. World War II cannot happen. World War I was nothing to speak of in light nor shall World War II be something to speak of period. Ladies and gentlemen, should World War II break out, it has the potential to cause worldwide catastrophe on a scale so great as to kill billions. We cannot stand idly by and let that many innocents die.

"The integrity and the honor of the Empire shall be preserved at all costs and at all times. Thank you and have a good evening."